FBI kidnapping classification for Hailey Dunn may change

October 19, 2011

Recently, one witness said she was certain she saw Hailey Dunn, missing Colorado City teen, on Dec. 27. Colorado City police say they don't believe the accounts are correct.
Chief Roy Owens and investigators from the department go over tips from the public, but he said not all are correct. Owens said emotions can cloud people's memories, so it's up to investigators to find the truth.
Hailey was also recently added to the FBI's missing children list. But Chief Owens says there is not enough evidence to call her disappearance a kidnapping. A few weeks ago, the FBI put out a flyer labeling missing Colorado City 14-year-old Hailey Dunn the victim of a kidnapping. Now, the FBI will likely change that classification.
According to a report from Newswest 9 in Midland, Mitchell County Sheriff Patrick Toombs says listing the case as a kidnapping was a mistake. Instead, she should've been under "missing person," according to Toombs.
The sheriff's office told Newswest 9 the FBI will go back and fix the mistake.
The FBI is offering a $15,000 reward for information that might lead to the person responsible for any crime that occurred against Hailey Dunn.
Hailey vanished in December 2010. Her mother and mother's boyfriend had been labeled "persons of interest" in the case. No arrests have been made.
Friends still hold hope for Hailey Dunn
The last time Macy Daniels saw her friend Hailey Dunn was Dec. 27, 2010.
"I was at the [middle school] basketball court, and I was walking home from the basketball court to the hamburger shop and I'd seen her. We talked for a minute, but then she took off [in the direction of her home]," said Daniels.
The two had been friends for several years.
"I met her in third grade, I think, and we became really good friends, and we started talking. Then I moved down here and we caught back up and started being really good friends," Daniels said.
Capricia Henderson played softball with the missing teen. She says her memory is still alive at the middle school.
"They're like, hanging little signs with orange ribbons saying 'Hope for Hailey,' with little pictures," said Henderson.
The reminders of her missing friend are tough on Daniels. "It's really hard to walk and see all that," she said.
She misses the every day things that kept their friendship going. "She'd come over to my house almost every weekend and we'd talk and text," Daniels said.
Henderson says if she saw Hailey today, she'd have some advice for her friend. "If she never went missing, I'd influence her to not walk at night," she said.
The two are hanging on to hope that the FBI's involvement will bring their friend back.